Dakota Territory

“ It is now one of the leading agricultural States of the Union, with a population of a million; and Dakota is waiting only for the legal form of admission to become a State. The profits of railway construction, the opportunities for skilful management in the development of territory, and the spice of gambling which permeated the whole were great temptations to Americans to embark in the business. ”

“ The only surveyed land was in the vicinity of Pembina. Here in 1868 Joseph Rolette, pioneer fur trader and settler, filed the first homestead in North Dakota, the only one before 1870. In 1871 a few more claims were filed, but it was not until 1885 that settlement increased to any great extent. During [Pg 62] that year so many "took up" land that Dakota Territory became known as "the land of the free and the home of the boomer ... free homesteaders and town site boomers." ”

“ The Republican national convention of 1888 made the division and admission of North and South Dakota a national issue and it was discussed from every platform in America. The Republican party prevailed in that election, and, before the close of the Congress then in existence, the bill for the division of Dakota territory and the admission of North and South Dakota was passed on St. Valentine's Day and approved on Washington's Birthday, 1889, and that bill provided that no acre of school land in South Dakota or North Dakota should ever be sold for less than the sum of ten dollars. ”

“ Sorely as were the people of Vermilion disappointed, their sense of humor was too great to permit them to mourn long over the laughable mistake. "Governor" Bigelow lived with them for many years and in the fullness of a ripe old age died among them, respected by every one; but Yankton became the temporary and the permanent capital of Dakota territory.
After setting up his headquarters at Yankton, Governor Jayne had a census taken, which showed 2402 white people in Dakota territory; and called an election for the choice of a delegate to Congress and members of a legislature. ”

“ Yankton, of course, gave up the capital reluctantly and made a hard fight for its retention. Southern Dakota was much more populous than northern Dakota, and had the larger delegation in the legislature; and the leaders were determined to remove the territorial capital back into southern Dakota at the next session. Pierre, Huron, and Mitchell were leading candidates for the honor, and in each session of the legislature of the territory, except the last one, the matter was vigorously fought, but without success, because the southern Dakota men could not all agree upon one town. ”

“ This veto caused much indignation among the people of South Dakota and did very much to arouse the people to the necessity of prompt action. The executive committee thereupon called a delegate convention to meet at Huron, June 19, 1883. Every county in South Dakota was there represented by its strongest men. Its action was most calm and dignified. A solemn ordinance was passed providing for a constitutional convention for the south half of Dakota territory to be held at the city of Sioux Falls on September 4 of that year. ”

“ The district courts of the territory of Dakota are invested with the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the laws of the United States as is vested in the circuit and district courts of the United States. Rev. St. §§ 1907-1910. The reservation of the Sioux Indians, lying within the exterior boundaries of the territory of Dakota, was defined by article 2 of the treaty concluded April 29, 1868, (15 St. 635,) and by section 1839 Rev. St., it is excepted out of and constitutes no part of that territory. ”

“ The constitution was submitted to the people at an election on the first day of October. They approved it, and on the second day of November, 1889, President Harrison issued his proclamation, admitting South Dakota as a state in the Union. North Dakota was admitted as another state by the same proclamation.
Statehood was welcomed by the people with real rejoicing. As a territory the people had no part in the election of a President, nor in the legislation by Congress, and all of the conditions of territorial life tended to make a people dependent rather than self-reliant. ”

“ They have school facilities for the education of their children. Their progress would have been greater had they not been kept in a state of restlessness by reports from the outside that they would soon be returned to Dakota, and that therefore they need not apply themselves to the improvement of their condition on the soil they occupy in the Indian Territory. ”

“ It was sometimes tiresome to receive large groups of people, who wanted to know impossible things about the country, and if it was a good soil for wheat. I only remember one party who taxed my patience to the uttermost. They cared nothing about Dakota as an agricultural territory, but had come on purpose to see the general. To satisfy them, I sent the servants and orderly to find him, but all returned with the same answer—he was nowhere to be seen. I walked about the garrison with them, explaining our post as best I could ”

“ This frequently does not result in a well-balanced permanent population, and the real settlement of South Dakota dates from the succeeding period when its prairie lands were taken up by wheat growers from the States of the upper Mississippi Valley. The wheat industry in Wisconsin gradually died during the decade of 1870-80, and many who found the ground unprofitable there moved farther west, as did others with similar motives from western New York and the States of the old Northwest Territory.
South Dakota has a slightly higher percentage of old Americans than its sister to the north ”

“ But whatever attractions or drawbacks this territory has as a place of residence, its grain and stock growing capacity is inexhaustible, and having seen it, we begin to comprehend the vigorous activity and growth of the twin cities. And yet this is the beginning of resources; there lies Dakota, with its 149,100 square miles (96,596,480 acres of land) , larger than all the New England States and New York combined, and Montana beyond, together making a belt of hard spring-wheat land sufficient, one would think, to feed the world. When one travels over 1200 miles of it, doubt ceases. ”

“ Territorial Governors and other high officials were not popular with the people. They were usually from the East and had no interest in the country, their salaries or political advancement being their chief concern. Just after the first legislature had adjourned an Indian uprising disturbed the settlers. It did not take the Governor and other officials long to quit the Territory. Moses Armstrong, later a Congressman, wrote, "With such rapidity do they fly, pale and breathless, that a boy could play marbles on their horizontal coat tails." ”

“ Additional land could be obtained by buying up grants to soldiers in the United States Army. Military land warrants could be purchased for a nominal price, often as low as 50 cents an acre.
At first, despite the ease of obtaining land, there was no great influx of settlers into the new land. The Nation was in the grip of the Civil War, and Indian troubles in the West not only discouraged new settlement but frightened out many who had already made their homes there. Writers who had visited the Territory depicted it as "a land of blizzards and Indians, drought and grasshoppers." ”

“ With finely engraved copper-plates. 2 vols. Post 8vo. old calf, gilt backs with leather labels. London, 1767. $5.00
A neat set with fine impressions of the plates.
178A Great West. The Early Empire Builders of the Great West. By Moses K. Armstrong, a Pioneer Congressman. Compiled and Enlarged from the Authors' Early History of Dakota Territory in 1866. Many interesting illustrations. 8vo. cloth. St. Paul, Minn., 1901. $1.50
Contents: Early History of Dakota Territory; Natural Resources of the Northwest Territories as Seen in 1866; Early Elections; Pioneer Legislatures and Indian Wars ”

“ Driven westward by the Dakotas, they were found by early explorers at the eastern base of the Black Hills, in Dakota. Subsequently part of them moved south, and allied themselves with the Arapahoes. Within a few years they have all been collected on a reservation in the western part of the Indian Territory. Their whole history has been a series of wars against their red neighbours and the whites. They are a large, powerful, athletic race, mentally superior to most of the other tribes. Their occupations are war and hunting. Thus far they have made little or no progress in civilization. ”

“ Albright was a newspaper man and promoter; he was speaker of the House of Representatives and preferred that position to the governorship, and so declined to qualify as governor, and the legislature elected Judge W. W. Brookings to fill the vacancy. Both Masters and Brookings were governors only by common consent, as Congress had not yet organized the territory; but Judge Brookings continued as the nominal governor of Dakota until the appointment of Governor William Jayne, by President Lincoln, in April, 1861. ”

“ Meager as are our data for the area south of the United States, we can find positive indications of nomenclatures with Dakota features only among the Caribs and the Chibcha, with occasional suggestions elsewhere. The Tupi and Arawak systems are markedly unforked; the Araucanian and Sipibo terminologies are forked but non-merging. Taking into account the large section of North America already defined as lacking bifurcation with merging, we thus have an immense territory in America in which the Dakota principle does not occur. ”

“ When the war was finally over, Manuel perfectly understood conditions among the Indians on both rivers, and he hurried to St. Louis to propose that a great council be immediately called in which all of the Sioux should be invited to participate and that they be thereby drawn to the American interest, both for citizenship and for trade. Clark, now governor of Missouri territory, fully agreed with him, and authorized a council to be held at Portage des Sioux, at the mouth of the Missouri River. ”

“ There are several counties of Dakota that are larger than Delaware, which contains but 2,050 square miles; such, for example, as Grand Forks, Pembina, and Burleigh. Some of the unorganized counties are as large as Connecticut. It will not be long before, following the practice in the most thickly settled parts of the Territory, these undergrown but over-extended counties will be subdivided into smaller ones of sixteen to twenty townships, the ordinary size of an Iowa county, each about half the size of “Little Rhody.” ”

“ They organized as the Dakota Land Company, and in the spring of 1857 sent a party of men, under the lead of Major Franklin De Witt, into the South Dakota country to claim the town sites. At Sioux Falls it was expected to establish the territorial capital, and there a city was to be immediately built. Governor Medary of Minnesota territory, a very influential politician, holding his appointment from the President of the United States and having large influence at Washington, was the president of the company. ”

“ That all that portion of territory lying on the Red River, including the settlements of Pembina and St. Joseph, shall constitute the seventh council district of Dakota, and shall be entitled to one councilman, and two representatives in the legislative assembly of this territory. ”

“ Year after year he braved the awful winters of Dakota alone. I have known him start out from Fort Lincoln when even our officers, accustomed as they were to hardships, were forbidden to go. He had been the best shot and most successful hunter in the territory for fifteen years. When I watched the scouts starting off on their missions, I invariably thanked Heaven that I was born a woman, and consequently no deed of valor would ever be expected from me. ”

“ He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise ”

“ The Indians retain many racial customs and legends despite the encroachment of the white man's civilization. The metis, of French and Chippewa blood, were famous as hunters and trappers. Many of them were found in the upper Red River Valley and adjoining territory about 1850. Their descendants now live in small clay-plastered log houses, with much of their household equipment and bedding kept in the yard.
Many of North Dakota's characteristic folkways represent foreign cultures rather than anything intrinsically American. ”

“ This act shall be known as the code of civil procedure of the Territory of Dakota.
Rule of construction.Sect. 2. The rule of the common law, that statutes in derogation thereof, are to be strictly construed, has no application to this code. Its provisions, and all proceedings under it, shall be liberally construed, with a view to promote its object, and assist the parties in obtaining justice. ”

“ A skilled physician when he visits a sick room always diagnoses the case of the patient before he administers a remedy. In order to comprehend thoroughly the tremendous significance the Land of the Dacotahs bears in its relation to the solution of the problem of country life in America, one must know something about the commonwealth and its people.
North Dakota is a prairie state. Its land area comprises seventy-one thousand square miles of a rich black soil equal in its fertility to the deposits at the delta of the River Nile in Egypt. There are over forty million acres of tillable land. ”